On July 24, 2007, I entered a post on my Camp Timbercrest blog about visiting the Gravel Pit. You can read about that by clicking this sentence. What I didn’t mention in that post is that while I was there, I found a dead bird that had a tag on its leg.
I entered the tag number into this database: http://www.reportband.gov/. The number was not in the database. Apparently the bander has not yet made an intial entry for this tag. I checked with bird bander Tom LeBlanc, but it wasn’t one of his tags. He gave me the name of another bander and I checked with him… another dead end.
Do you know a bander? Could you pass the link to this post on to help me solve this mystery? The tag number was 2261 63326. I found the bird here:
Thanks for your help! (And please don’t tell anyone in my family that I put the dead bird on the kitchen table to photograph it, kay?)
A Passion for Nature 
Did you try Scott and Don? WOW, those beetles cleaned this guy up real nice! I can’t wait to see what it turns out being!
Know what? As I was posting this I suddenly thought about Scott and Don. Why didn’t I try them before. If I remember, I’ll give Scott a call when I get to work today.
That bird is clean and dry. Putting a dead chicken from the grocery store on your table would be more likely to cause bacterial contamination. Interesting little mystery.
Hi Jennifer,
I’m sure your family understands (just as mine do when they come over for a holiday dinner and find a dead bird in a baggie in the freezer).
Any ideas on the identity? (grey catbird or robin?)
Don’t think that’s one of ours but I’ll check!
Doesn’t look like its ours, which on the one hand is good, I didn’t want a dead bird to be ours, but on the other hand any recovery is good
Jen, did you ever get anything back on this bird?
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Not one of our birds, either. 🙂 I just checked the online reporting thing again, and the data still hasn’t been submitted to the office, which suggests to me probably (though not necessarily) an independent bander rather than an organized banding station. The stations I know are all generally quite prompt in submitting their data (ours is usually in within a month or two of season-end, which for us is mid-November). What I can offer is that the prefix of the band number (the first four digits) is a 1B band size, which corresponds to the chunkier sparrows like White-throated, White-crowned, Song, etc, as well as all of the thrushes except Wood, and certain other species (titmice, Carolina Wren, Y-b sapsucker, W-b Nuthatch, etc). Not that that helps you figure out where it’s from, but might be interesting (though from the skeleton you’ve probably already got an idea of the species). You could also try posting to the listserv BirdBand (or ask Tom to):
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/6549/birdband.htm
Archives here:
http://www.birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/BAND.html
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